Next Step: Find a Grave and Message Boards

Next, the most logical thing is to take a look at cemetery on Find a Grave.

Some of the burial listings at Find a Grave are complete and correct. In the early years, Rhode Island made people pay a fee to get birth, marriages and deaths recorded so unlike the records I have found when researching Bridgewater, MA (people with the surname Perkins) for a similar project, finding the Mathewson records is much harder.

The various surname message boards are absolutely no help. Not much is posted to these anymore and I noticed that the man who was in charge of one is deceased. I had some luck with a general Rhode Island message board some time back so I may have to try that.

The Find a Grave listing did group some persons with parents. That was a help. Mathewson people tended to live in the same household in the early census records.

Who is who?

List of those buried at the Noah Mathewson Lot (from the cemetery database at NEHGS):

1. ANTHONY CHARLES KENDALL 1845c - 28 DEC 1848
   
2. ANTHONY DANIEL HARRIS 1838c - 23 OCT 1839

3. ANTHONY JOHN H, DR 1806c - 30 JAN 1848

4. ANTHONY JOHN M 1842c - 5 NOV 1900

5. ANTHONY PALIA FRANCES 1839c - 23 SEP 1840

6. GREEN JUDITH (MATHEWSON) 1771c - 8 JUL 1853

7. HARRIS CAROLINA FRANCE 1833c - 22 SEP 1838

8. HARRIS CHARLES KENDALL 1839c - 20 SEP 1851

9. HARRIS ORRIN 1811c - 1 JAN 1879

10. HARRIS SOPHIA O (MATHEWSON) 1813c - 14 JAN 1896

11. HARRISON DANIEL 1857c - 1937

12. MATHEWSON ANN (ANGELL) 1781c - 19 FEB 1805

13. MATHEWSON CAROLINA FRANCE 1821c - 18 MAY 1822

14. MATHEWSON DANIEL 1777c - 15 MAY 1865

15. MATHEWSON ELIZABETH H 1810c - 28 AUG 1851

16. MATHEWSON JOSEPH 1767c - 30 JUL 1828

17. MATHEWSON JUDITH 1740c - 28 JAN 1827

18. MATHEWSON MARY H 1787c - 19 OCT 1865

19. MATHEWSON NOAH 1735c - 17 SEP 1824

20. MATHEWSON ORIN WHIPPLE 1818c - 19 OCT 1819

21. MATHEWSON PENELOPE 1768c - 11 JAN 1847

22. OWEN ANN A (MATHEWSON) 1808c - 22 JUL 1855

23. OWEN DANIEL 1808c - 19 JUN 1864

24. TURNER LIZZIE HARRIS 1852c - 19 NOV 1866

25. TURNER MARY JANE (MATHEWSON) 1827 - 7 SEP 1883

Noah MATHEWSON

Noah MATHEWSON (Hon.), a photo by midgefrazel on Flickr.

Starting at the end:  Noah Mathewson's gravestone

Buried in the Johnston Historical Cemetery #2, this is the slate gravestone of Noah MATHEWSON for which this cemetery is named.This photo was taken by a member of the Johnston Historical Society.

Noah was a "soldier of the Revolution" and held offices in both the town of Johnston and the State of Rhode Island. which is why his grave reads Esq. (Today, the title of Esq. is reserved for men and women who are attorneys-at-law or judges of the court.)

The Family Curator needs proof of Noah's service to prove her line to join the DAR. This gravestone will be part of that proof. With the kind help of Cherry Fletcher Bamburg of the Rhode Island Genealogical Society, The Family Curator and myself have been looking for the will of Noah Mathewson to prove the connection to his son Benjamin Mathewson.

Read more about this collaboration at The Family Curator!

Tombstone Tuesday: Family Plots

Johnston Historical Cemetery #2, a photo by midgefrazel on Flickr.

Taken by the Johnston Historical Society, this is the family plot of Noah Mathewson and his family in Johnston, RI.

The Johnston Historical Society has a Facebook page and a Web site. They are cleaning up and restoring the cemeteries in their town. As you can see the Rhode Island cemeteries are very much in need of work.

Cherry Fletcher Bamburg reports that there are 4,000 small cemeteries in Rhode Island. Many are "lost" which means that they were either moved to larger cemeteries, have sunk into the ground, or were family plots that were never used.

Mathewson Lot Johnston RI

Gate and Sign Johnston Historical Cemetery #2, a photo by midgefrazel on Flickr.

This is the first in a series of photos taken for the combined project of The Family Curator and Granite in My Blood.
Taken by The Johnston (RI) Historical Society, this is a shot of the badly over grown Mathewson Lot. All RI Cemeteries that are of historical significance have an assigned number for each town. This is Johnston Historical Cemetery #2.

See the sign and the post where a gate should be?